Providence community left reeling after four children are accused of murder: ‘Something we can’t understand’ - The Boston Globe

PROVIDENCE – In the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence, there’s one question everyone is asking: How could this have happened?

Four boys, ages 11 and 12, are charged with murder after police say they punched and kicked 51-year-old Rony Alonso while out after dark on Manton Avenue on a Monday night last month. He died three days later.

So far, investigators believe the four only wanted “to hurt an innocent person,” Major David Lapatin said, and are unaware of a motive specific to Alonso.

The unusual case has left many questioning how a brutal assault could have come at the hands of some of the city’s youngest residents.

“First of all, they should not have been out that late,” said Anthony E. Solomon, who owns Anthony’s drug store a block away from where authorities said the assault happened. “Second of all, where are the parents? People are questioning, where are the parents?”

Solomon said he knew Alonso, a longtime customer who visited his store daily.

“It’s something we can’t understand,” said Edgar Diaz, who lives nearby, in Spanish. “How is it that children attacked an adult?”

It was shortly before 7:30 p.m. on Jan. 19 when police say the attack happened near 249 Manton Ave. A bystander told officers he saw the group of boys punching and kicking Alonso before fleeing the scene, according to a police report.

Detectives collected surveillance video of the boys from nearby businesses. In one image viewed by the Globe, the boys are walking down the street, one with a basketball under his arm.

The children didn’t use any weapons other than their own hands and feet, Lapatin said. He said much of the attack was captured on video.

Alonso was brought to Rhode Island Hospital, where his condition deteriorated, officials said. He died Jan. 22.

The day after the attack, officers were paying particular attention to the neighborhood when another disturbance broke out near 228 Manton Ave. in the late afternoon. A 57-year-old woman told authorities three boys had thrown rocks at her vehicle, and when she approached them, “they attempted to assault her,” police wrote in a separate report. Detectives recognized them as matching the description of the suspects who attacked Alonso.

According to police, the fourth suspect in the attack on Alonso was later arrested on a warrant.

Alonso is described in an obituary as a father of three who was born in Guatemala. One of his sons, 25-year-old Luis Alonzo, died in a fiery car crash in Warwick in November.

“This heartbreaking and senseless act has left our family in deep pain and mourning,” reads a GoFundMe campaign created to support Alonso’s family.

A funeral is planned for Saturday in Providence, according to the obituary.

Solomon described him as a “good man.”

“It’s not like he chased the kids out, or he threatened the kids, ‘I’m gonna kill you.’ Nothing like that,” Solomon said. “This is a guy they took full advantage of.” (Solomon is the son of the late state treasurer Anthony J. Solomon, who originally opened the store in 1956.)

Manton Avenue is a main road that cuts through the heavily Latino Olneyville and Manton neighborhoods, ending near Mount Pleasant. On the block where Alonso was assaulted, there’s a cake shop, an auto mechanic, and a food pantry. A block away is the drug store, and a rifle and pistol club. An elementary school and a rec center are around the corner. Rows of triple-deckers, some run-down, line the streets.

Like Alonso, Diaz, 68, is originally from Guatemala. He has lived in Providence for 37 years.

“We think, in the Hispanic community, we are no longer safe,” Diaz said.

On his street in 2024, a 7-year-old girl was shot and killed in a car. When his wife and daughter come home from work at night, he goes outside to walk them inside safely.

He sees the fatal attack on Alonso as a failure in parenting. “We don’t know how to educate our children,” Diaz said.

Richard Hemphill, a Manton resident who has long volunteered in the local Little League, said parents “need to keep up with [their] children and know what they’re doing at all times.”

“It’s a horrible thing that they did, and a horrible act,” Hemphill said. “But they’re 11 and 12 years old, and people are forgetting about that. They want to go for blood, you know, ‘Oh, punish these kids to the maximum extent.’ Well, they’re 11 and 12 years old. They really don’t have a grasp on what they’re doing.”

All four boys are currently being held at the Rhode Island Training School, where juvenile offenders are sent. Police have not publicly identified them.

Asked whether the middle school-aged suspects would be tried as adults, police said the decision would be up to Attorney General Peter Neronha’s office, which declined to comment.

Solomon said he thinks the boys should be treated as adults.

“If these kids are not tried as adults and put away, what’s [going to] happen by the time they’re 16 years old?” Solomon said.

Christopher Gavin can be reached at christopher.gavin@globe.com. Steph Machado can be reached at steph.machado@globe.com. Follow her @StephMachado.